I grew up playing the flute and became fairly accomplished in high school. I have played off and on as an adult, never getting past my peak as a teenager in technique, but steadily developing a more sensitive ear and the ability to make music.

Last week, I attended one of my son’s band concerts. He’s in middle school but this particular concert included 5th graders who started playing an instrument just a few months ago. As the fifth graders warmed up with a scale, I wondered what it must be like to be the band director for beginning musicians. Actually, I did more than wonder. I felt sorry for the guy. What enjoyment could there be from conducting the barest of musical pieces out of standardized books, with kids who were years from doing justice to their instruments?

I soon got my answer. The band director paused after the first song and recounted the first day of rehearsal, when the kids were just learning to put their instruments together. He asked the kids to give a sample of the cacophony that day. It sounded like how you might imagine it.

Then he recounted their slow but steady progress–learning about key signatures, half notes and quarter notes and eighth notes. With each piece the band played that night, he reminded the audience of a skill that the young musicians were trying out–playing pick up notes, creating imagery through sound, coming in at the right time. These were skills I had taken for granted. Oh, how I had forgotten! And oh, how this marvelous man had provided the audience a way to appreciate what they were hearing–not from the perspective of absolute music-making, but from the view of how far their children had come. It was a celebration of the journey, as opposed to the destination.

What if we were all able to celebrate the journey more and be less concerned with the destination? Life would be different, wouldn’t it?